The edge of night I: Memory

[Sandermann]

Unusually for this part of the cloak wood, so close to the sea that the waves were an everpresent counterpoint to the rustling leaves, it was cold. And unusually for this particular part of the cloakwood, it was quiet.
This was always the quiet time, after the last adults had gone to their beds, and before the first cries of waking children. Before the bakers woke to rouse the kitchen, before the guards woke to change their watch.

Tel sat on the ridge that overlooked the grove, her grove, and below her nothing moved save the occasional lethargic twitch from one of the guardian spiders. An irony not lost on her, having spiders guard this grove, especially as some of the older ones still bore the spider mark of Lolth branded onto their wide abdomens. But today was no day for ironies, it was a day for truths. So Tel sat, and she remembered...

****

Rain. The rain never seemed to cease in this city. Wether this was true, or wether it simply always rained in her memory here, it did not matter. Younger, though not much so, Tel crouched in the alleyway. Around her crouched her warriors, of sorts, all awaiting her command to strike...
...but here she crouched, a Drow, deadly and trained, a stalker and killer in the night, wearing the white surcoat and armour of a paladin of the Triad, clutching in her hand the curled horn of the Waterdeep city watch to call in the aid of the Green cloaked, black helmed N'Tel once this fight began. Ridiculous as this situation was, Tel did at least aknowledge that it showed how far she had come, to lead the forces of Waterdeep like this. Even if it was at night, when the people could not see.

The rain washed through the narrow alley, becoming putrid as it gathered the past day's detritus, washing brown and stinking into the street, flowing downhill to further bloat the already struggling gutters of the High Road. The guttering lanterns of the shop opposite reflected dully in the brown liquid. An agent for travelling merchants, it purported to be. somewhere they could pre-arrange accomodation and such things. A front of course. The building sat in its own little square, surrounded on all sides by houses, yards and narrow alleys.

Tel chuckled and cast her glance down the four other alleys adjoining this square. Each alley held a different force, twenty paladins of the Triad with her. To the left Captain Owain with twenty watchmen. Ahead, twenty guardsmen under the steel eye of Gate Warden Kross, and next to them a dozen or so adventurers and militia. And inside this small shop? Tel only hoped she had been granted enough warriors to bring down the temple of bane that this place acted as a front for.

Lightening split the sky, and Tel frowned. This was an ill fortuned night to conduct this attack, but time was pressing. Her blood tingled, the skin across her shoulders crept.....somewhere close, magic was being worked, significant magic. Tel moved from the wall to crouch in the open alleyway, dropping the shield the Paladins had insisted she carried to free her off hand. A sprinters crouch.

Lightening split the sky. The owner of a quick eye might have wondered if he really did see a white clad dark elf running across the square when it did. The leather clad, cudgel armed guard by the shop's door did indeed wonder such a thing, when a second flash of lightening danced along the edges of a pair of Mithral blades as they sliced towards his neck. He did not have time to utter the cry of surprise on his lips before his head fell.

The battle was fierce, but swiftly over. There was no subtelty to Tels plan, they were here to make an example, a very graphic and memorable one. The Triad and adventurers led, cutting through any member of the cult who dared bar their way to the main temple chamber, the watchmen followed, clapping irons on any still breathing after the first assault, and the guardsmen remained in the square. Tel knew the cult had secret entrances to the sewers from this temple, but she knew that those were being watched forces far more terrifying than those she had in her command right now. She heard a few screams indicating some cultists tried this route.

The iron entrance to the main temple chamber was of course barred, but it quickly fell to stout blows from four Paladins wielding a stone statue as a ram. Inside was a vision of the hells, fire leapt along everywall, so hot the stone cracked. Within two cowled figures stood by a Lectern. At first she thought this some incantation, some work of sorcercy, some trick of the lord of strife. But then she realised the flames were real, this was no trick, they were destroying the temple before it fell. She leapt forward, hoping at least to get some answers from one of the figures before they died....her hand closed round the arm of the first figure, and to her horror came away full of charred cloth and cooked flesh, the figure turned to her, its face a rictus of pain, its eyes near boiled away, lips peeled back across its teeth by the heat of the fire consuming it as it gave a last dying gasp.

As she reeled back from the half cooked corpse, the second figure turned to her and laughed. Untouched by the heat, she realised this figure was a projection, the tall, dark haired man before her was not really here. With his crows nose and thin, angular face, he looked vaguely familiar. His eyes caught the medallion on Tels neck and he quirked an eyebrow, seemingly unfazed by the destruction around him.

"Now, now." he cawed "That is odd. A Drow, wearing the symbol of a forgotten goddess, in the armour of a paladin of Tempus, serving the city of splendours? What curious times we see. You and your masters have won this round it seems, drow, but do not think this will be forgotten" The apparition waved its hand, and with that was gone.

And now Tels memory focused on the event that changed her life forever, turning to dive back out of the burning temple, her eye caught a shape on the altar. Swaddled and barely moving. A child. She diveretd her dash through the flames and gathered the infant up, pushing forward towards the door and the waiting warriors. As she rushed through, the stones behind her began to crack and fall.

"OUT!"

All turned and dashed for the exit, dragging the wounded and fallen with them as they went. Emerging into the open sky was for once a relief to Tel. The still unfamiliar rain cooling and soothing after the heat of the fire within.

The cry of "FIRE!" quickly went up, a terror ever present in a dense city made of wood, but the pump engines were already waiting, and within a few heartbeats water was streaming over the burning building assisted by simple frost and cold cantrips from the Watch wizards.

Tel snuck away back to her alley, still clutching the infant. In the shadow she pulled back the cloth from its face, and gasped. The childs noiselessly moving lips explained her silence, she was evidently mute, but it was not this that took Tel breath. The childs midnight black skin and pure white hair, red eyes and clear beauty meant Tel knew she had found what she sought...her salvation.

"Vendui youngling" she spoke formally, even though the child could not understand. "I am Arzit'el Varillo of Menzoberranzan, Blade dancer and protector of Eilistraee. And though I do not know your name, on this night where drow, elf, human, halfling, gnome and dwarf fought by side, I shall name you Kestal, hope".

****

As the memory passed, the first children began to emerge into the grove to await the breakfast meal. Kestal, no longer a child in terms of size, but no older than twenty years, led them. Her calm, gracefull movements directing them, keeping the unruly mix of drow, elf and halfling children in some semblance of order as they ran amongst the trees and huge spiders.

Kestal looked up and caught sight of her mother, giving her a warm wave before being dragged away again to take part in a game of tag.

Tel chuckled, fondly watching her eldest daughter grow happy and content in a life she herself could never have dreamed of as her youngest daughter emerged from the cave, and present faded to memory once again.

****